It is general practice in the paper industry to produce a continuous sheet or web of paper which is wound onto large spools. In order to have a continuous operation it is, of course, necessary to have a system for instantaneously switching from winding the web of paper onto a full roll to an empty roll, particularly at modern speeds of paper production. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,461,246 there is shown a method of feeding a tape onto the rotating empty roll core and causing it to be spirally wrapped on that core as it stretches tight across the traveling web of paper and cuts the paper, with the cut edge being led onto the empty roll supported by the cutting tape. Subsequent improvements such as shown in my three U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,659,029; 4,757,950; and 4,783,018 illustrate how a cutting tape can be passed through a guideway underneath a traveling web of paper, perhaps 10 to 20 feet or more wide and be attached to the far side of an empty spool while the operator remains on the near side of the spool. These patents teach the use of mechanical arms to receive a cut end of the tape with adhesive on the tape, and to push the cut end into contact with the empty spool which winds the tape helically around the spool, cutting the paper web as it does, and wrapping the on-coming web around the empty spool. Processing difficulties have arisen to indicate the need for handling errors, such as the failure to apply a suitable amount of adhesive to the tape, which, in turn, means that the tape does not attach itself properly to the empty spool and, therefore, does not cut the traveling web of paper and transfer it to the empty spool. In the modern high speed plants it is very important that any such errors be handled quickly and efficiently. One improvement has been to use double-sided pressure-sensitive adhesive tape as the adhesive strip on the cutting tape. This is disclosed generally in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,783,018 and in my copending patent application Ser. No. 07/494,418 filed Mar. 16, 1990. The present invention provides an improved apparatus for performing this task with double-sided pressure-sensitive adhesive tape. A second application of the present invention is to provide a hand held device to apply a strip of double-sided pressure sensitive adhesive tape to a cutting tape where, for any reason the feeding machinery failed to apply the necessary strip of adhesive to the leading portion of the tape.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved apparatus for applying a short strip of double-sided pressure-sensitive adhesive tape to the forward portion of a length of cutting tape for use in transferring a traveling web of paper from one windup roll to another. It is another object of this invention to provide a hand held device for applying a strip of double-sided pressure sensitive adhesive tape to a cutting tape, or to any other surface. Still other objects will become apparent from the more detailed description which follows.